Meet James Kern!

Among the things that I like about tattoo artist James Kern is that his portfolio has a specific section in order to showcase the hand and foot tattoos that he’s done. Tattoos and feet are in my opinion some of the greatest spots on the human body for tattoos and the fact that Kern acknowledges this not only with his work but also with a specific spot in his portfolio is pretty refreshing. Not to mention that the work that he does on feet and hands is pretty damn fine. Pretty damn fine, indeed. That’s not to say that all of Kern’s work isn’t pretty damn fine, I just thought I’d mention the feet and hands stuff first. That okay with you? Good.

Before James Kern started tattooing full time, he tattooed friends and made his living by colouring comic books. A pretty cool sideline, and when you think about it, a pretty appropriate one for a tattoo artist in training. In 1995, Kern graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, then went on to begin his career as a tattoo artist at Chicago’s Milios Salon. It was while at Milios that Kern met and learned from numerous big names in the tattoo industry, including Guy Aitchison and Kim Saigh. Kern stayed at Milios for three years, honing his skills and making plenty of friends along the way. After three years, Kern moved on to the No Hope No Fear tattoo studio. Today Kern lives in Portland Oregon, still in the No Hope No Fear family, tattooing at its Portland location.

In addition to my own personal fondness for Kern’s hand and foot tattoos, his portrait work is amazing as well (I love the Woody Allen portrait). All of the black and grey work on display here is phenomenal and when Kern does splash in some colour, things get downright three dimensional. A superb tattoo artist who deserves all the recognition he can get and more. So what are you waiting for? Go check out James Kern’s stuff!